


Seven

by Orinoco_II



Series: Codas [6]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: Audio Book: In The Shadows, Episode: s02e03 To the Last Man, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14253018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orinoco_II/pseuds/Orinoco_II
Summary: How those Sundays watching TV at Ianto's flat began.





	Seven

“You off?”

Ianto looks up as he pulls on his coat to see Jack standing on the gantry above him. “Yep.” He’s tired and hungry and it’s Saturday night. The others left an hour ago. It’s been a long week, with time shifts and frozen soldiers, and Ianto is, quite frankly, shattered.

“Ok.” Jack shoves his hands into his pockets. “See you tomorrow.”

“I’m not in tomorrow,” Ianto reminds him. “It’s my Sunday off.”

“Right. Of course.”

They made the Sunday rota whilst Jack was away – two team members at the Hub and two on call. It helped a little with the work life balance, though Gwen was the only one who ever really took advantage of it. Owen used his Sundays to sleep off his hangovers whilst Tosh and Ianto generally ended up working anyway. The pattern has continued after Jack’s return, only with Jack now using his days off to become even more mysterious. But tomorrow, Ianto has a flat sorely in need of cleaning.

Ianto begins to leave when something in Jack’s demeanour makes him turn back. “You could come with me, if you want?” He tries to make it casual. “I’m getting pizza.”

Jack smiles a broad, genuine smile. “I’ll get my coat.”

Leaving the Hub in darkness, they arrive at the underground garage and both head in opposite directions – Jack to the SUV, Ianto to his Audi. They pause, realising, and turn to face one another, neither quite sure how to approach the subject.

“I don’t mind driving,” Jack says eventually, with a small wave towards the SUV.

“Neither do I,” Ianto replies quickly, glancing over his shoulder. “And I might need my car.”

They seem to have reached an impasse. Ianto knows exactly the question he needs to ask and suspects Jack knows precisely the question _he_ needs to ask too. Then he smiles, shakes his head and wonders - why make it a question?

“Owen and Tosh’ll need the SUV tomorrow,” he announces, still smiling.

Jack regards him for a moment, cogs turning behind those beautiful blue eyes, as he realises that Ianto has cleverly asked him to stay the night without actually asking. “Right. We’d better take your car.”

The matter settled, they stride quickly over to Ianto’s car, the lock chirruping loudly in the enclosed space.

“There’s not much parking at mine, anyway,” Ianto says, as he starts the engine. “And you don’t want to get on the wrong side of the passive aggressive note-writing neighbours by stealing their spaces.”

Jack chuckles. “Sounds like a fate worse than death.”

“Believe me, it is.”

*

It’s a new car, Jack knows, but he can’t stop himself from thinking about the last time he was sitting in the passenger seat of Ianto’s Audi. He shakes the thoughts away and stares out of the window as Ianto drives them through the streets of Cardiff, full of Saturday night revellers stumbling into the roads. The car is impeccably clean – not an old parking ticket, or pile of change, or week-old sandwich packet to be seen. The radio’s tuned to BBC Wales.

“For the news and travel,” Ianto explains with a shrug. “I like keep an ear out for anything that sounds a bit Torchwood. You can find something else, if you like.”

Jack fiddles with the controls, succeeds only in finding Classic FM three times and then loses signal completely. He curses the radio which makes Ianto laugh. Alien tech from the future? No problem. A 21st century car radio? Baffling. He’s still trying to figure it out when Ianto pulls up outside his flat.

Inside, he takes off his coat, hangs it beside Ianto’s and follows him into the kitchen, where he unpins something from a noticeboard and hands it to Jack.

“Have a look. See what you fancy.”

Ianto abruptly disappears. Jack stares at the leaflet in his hand, scanning the bright text and pictures. He’s still standing in the middle of the kitchen gawping at the takeaway flyer when Ianto comes back, changed into a pair of jeans and a faded t-shirt. Jack stares at him, and then at the flyer, and then back up at Ianto.

Ianto’s cheeks redden slightly as he crosses to the sink and begins mindlessly emptying dishes from the drying rack. “So?” he asks. “What do you want?”

Jack puts the leaflet down on the small kitchen table. Above it is a watercolour of Welsh mountains. Details he didn’t notice before. “I don’t mind,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

“Bloody hell Jack,” Ianto groans, and Jack can’t quite tell if he’s being serious or not. “Don’t I make enough of these decisions when we’re at work? Can’t you even decide what bloody pizza you want?” Ianto leans one arm against the kitchen surface and gives him a pointed look.

Jack sheepishly picks the leaflet back up again. He opens it up, waves a finger over it and then jabs it down. “That one,” he declares, holding it out.

Ianto peers down at where his finger is pointed. “Red hot chilli feast,” he reads, taking his phone out of his pocket. “You sure?”

“Absolutely,” Jack declares bravely.

Ianto shrugs. “Be it on your head. And bowels.”

Ianto dials and orders – Jack’s red hot chilli feast and a standard non-stomach-destroying pepperoni for him. He hangs up and goes to the fridge, pausing with the door half open.

He looks up at Jack quizzically. “Do you drink?” His brow wrinkles. “I mean, I can’t ever remember seeing you drink anything but water or coffee.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “You’ve poured me a brandy.”

“Oh yeah.” Ianto laughs at himself. “I guess I meant beer, or wine. You never have one when we all do.”

Jack shrugs. “Sometimes I do.”

“That was a very long winded way of me asking if you want a beer,” Ianto explains.

Jack shakes his head. “Not tonight, thanks.”

“Water?” Ianto offers, taking a bottle of lager out of the fridge and shutting the door. “Or juice? I might have some somewhere.” He looks around his kitchen as though a carton of fruit juice might magically appear.

Jack smiles and shakes his head again. “Water’s fine.”

Jack realises he’s still rooted to the spot he’s been stood in since they arrived fifteen minutes ago and he’s still wearing his shoes. He watches as Ianto pours him a glass of water and prizes the top off his beer with a hiss.

“Come on through.” Ianto picks up both drinks and gestures with his head. “Sorry about the mess,” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

Jack finally springs into life, taking off his boots and following Ianto into his living room. He’s already on the sofa, turning on the television. Jack assumes the mess that Ianto is referring to is the pile of unopened post on the coffee table, or possibly the fact that there’s a book on the arm of the sofa, or three shirts hanging neatly on the end of the ironing board, or his laptop in the armchair, its charger coiled on top.

Jack sits beside Ianto on the sofa as he flicks through the channels and finally settles on some late night comedy talk show. They sit in silence watching it, Ianto slouched down in his seat, beer cradled against his stomach, looking for all the world as though he’s about to nod off at any moment. Jack can’t figure out why he feels so uncomfortable. This is Ianto, for heaven’s sake. The man he’s fought aliens with, laughed with, eaten pizza with, seen naked many, _many_ times and… Oh. Jack realises with a jolt.

The previous two times he was at Ianto’s flat, he barely made five minutes before they were locking lips and finding the quickest way to get off. Jack hadn’t had time on those occasions to notice Ianto’s neatly organised bookshelves or the sparse but tasteful artwork on his walls.

When he comes to think of it, when’s the last time Jack spent time in anyone’s home on a purely social basis? He seems to remember an awkward cup of tea in Alice’s kitchen some time last year, but otherwise…nothing. Jack Harkness is not a man who gets invited into his friends' homes, unless they’ve been ransacked by faeries from the dawn of time.

This is different. This is new. This is…

The door buzzer goes before Jack can pursue that train of thought any further. Ianto slowly gets to his feet and returns with two pizza boxes. He hands Jack’s to him.

“Good luck,” he smirks. “Shall I get you some more water?”

Jack looks at his untouched glass, on a plain black coaster on the coffee table. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

“Ok.” Ianto grins and flips open the lid on his pizza box.

The pizza is, Jack has to admit, not the best he’s ever had. He can handle the chilli – like many of his senses, his taste buds are a little desensitised to pain these days – but the effect just makes the pizza pretty tasteless. He has the sense to rinse his mouth out with two glasses of water, though, in anticipation of what might be coming later. Ianto happily munches through his own, stuffing in slices between mouthfuls of beer, looking every inch the mid-twenties man that he really is.

“How’s the pizza?” Ianto asks with a sly sideways glance.

Jack shrugs, affecting nonchalance. “Very nice,” he lies.

“When I lived in London, I got into a chilli eating contest with my mates after a few too many beers,” Ianto tells him. “Arse was on fire the next day. Swore to myself afterwards that I would never again eat something just to prove a point.”

“A lovely image.”

Ianto grins at him dorkily. “Just saying.”

“I can handle it. When I was in Dhaka, I ate a dish that’s supposed to make you retire to bed for three days to get over it. Me? Not even indigestion.”

Ianto looks at him, an expression of open curiosity on his face. “When were you in Bangladesh?”

Jack hesitates. He has a choice here. He can clam up and misdirect or give an honest answer. “I was posted there,” he explains. “A long time ago.”

Ianto chews a slice of pizza thoughtfully. “How long have you lived on Earth?” he asks carefully.

“Since 1869.”

Ianto takes this in. “Wow.”

Jack has to laugh because, really? ‘Wow’ doesn’t even half cover it. “Yeah.”

Ianto considers this for another moment. “I’ve got a ton of history books over there,” he says eventually, gesturing with his pizza towards his bookshelf. “You’re probably in some of them.”

“Could be,” Jack acknowledges, surprised how well Ianto is taking this. He decides to turn the conversation in a different direction. “Why so many history books?”

Ianto shrugs as he takes another swig from his bottle. “I love history. Always have.”

“Favourite era?” Jack queries.

“The Space Race,” Ianto answers immediately, with another dorky grin. “Predictably nerdy.”

“No way,” Jack counters. “NASA and the Soviets, back in the 60s – that stuff was so cool.”

“Really?” Ianto looks at him sceptically. “You’re from the future. Doesn’t our space programme make us look like cavemen?”

Jack shakes his head vehemently, twisting on the sofa so he’s facing Ianto. “Without Sputnik, and the Apollo programme, space shuttles, Soyuz, the ISS, my ancestors never would’ve made it out into space and I wouldn’t be here. Which,” he adds. “Is a terrible thought.”

Ianto grins again. “It certainly is.” His head sinks onto his chest momentarily as if he is, indeed, contemplating this thought. After a second, he puts aside his pizza box and his beer and leans over, kissing Jack with his eyes half closed.

Jack kisses back, tasting the beer and pizza and warmth of Ianto. Ianto’s kiss is confident and comfortable all at once and reminds Jack of all the new things they’ve done over the last few weeks since he’s been back; all the things Ianto has finally been relaxed enough to try. Ianto’s hands are in his hair, fingers working at the base of his scalp, in the way Jack loves and he sighs against his lips.

Ianto drags him down and Jack goes willingly with him, straddling Ianto as he peels off his t-shirt. The TV audience guffaw about something and there’s a thump as the book falls off the arm of the sofa onto the floor. Ianto grins and reaches for Jack’s braces.

*

Ianto wakes in a sudden panic. It’s daylight and his alarm hasn’t gone off. He’s going to be ridiculously late for work. He rolls over, winces and remembers. It’s Sunday. His day off. Jack was here last night. They explored some of the new skills Ianto has recently added to his repertoire – several times over. Why he had been reluctant to try them, he had no idea. He stretches and then recalls – Jack didn’t leave.

Slowly, other things begin to penetrate his consciousness. The rain beating against his bedroom window. The sound of the television from the living room.

Delving in his chest of drawers, Ianto pulls out clean pants and puts them on before going next door. He’s utterly unprepared for the scene that greets him. Jack, slumped on the sofa in his underwear, intently watching a children’s cartoon.

Ianto shakes his head in wonderment. “What are you doing?”

Jack looks up at him as though it’s obvious. “Watching TV.”

“Of course.” Ianto wraps his arms around his torso. It’s cold this morning, to match the dreary weather outside. Ianto swipes an old hoodie from his bedroom and tugs it over his head as he goes into the kitchen. As the kettle boils, he stares out at the rain coming down in slanting torrents and watches the wind batter the ash tree across the street, tearing off the leaves before they’ve even had a chance to turn brown.

Taking two coffees into the living room, he observes that Jack has not moved and is still staring at the screen, engrossed.

“Here you are.” He hands Jack a mug and sits beside him.

“Amazing.” Jack grins and kisses him. “And the coffee’s not bad either.”

“Such a charmer,” Ianto deadpans, with teasing eyes.

They sit and drink coffee side by side, watching cartoons with their bare feet touching where they rest on the coffee table. The rain lashes relentlessly at the windows. Ianto leans into Jack’s side, absorbing the heat he always seems to radiate. Cleaning his flat can wait for another day.


End file.
